


come to the moon

by girlwithacinderblockgarden



Category: Percy Jackson and the Olympians - Rick Riordan
Genre: F/M, I definitely wrote about a real place, Mortal AU, South Carolina, beach au, sea turtles
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-12-17
Updated: 2020-12-17
Packaged: 2021-03-11 01:00:42
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 2
Words: 2,963
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/28136589
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/girlwithacinderblockgarden/pseuds/girlwithacinderblockgarden
Summary: "Through time and space we'd find a place to bring our lives in phase. We're lost amid the galaxies revolving, and we're all just a part of what's evolving. So come to the Moon. I hope to see you soon. Half a million miles isn't far to go-- you know I need you so; I hope you still need me."mortal!au set at the beach.
Relationships: Annabeth Chase/Percy Jackson
Comments: 1
Kudos: 5





	1. one

Family vacations were a special kind of hell. At least, that’s what Annabeth Chase thought. There was absolutely nothing worse than being forced to spend time with people and having no escape route. When her father had suggested that they all go to the beach for a month over the summer, Annabeth tried everything to get out of it.

“I need to get a job, Dad.”

“Nonsense. You need to spend time with your family before you leave for college.”

“I need to meet my roommate and spend time with her.”

“That’s what orientation is for.”

She tried every excuse she could come up with, but nothing was enough for Dr. Chase. He was insisting on a beach vacation for the whole family, whether they liked it or not. It seemed that Annabeth was the only one who didn’t like it. So her bags were packed and stored in the trunk, and she was squished in the backseat for an eight hour car ride with her entire family. Music was the only saving grace she had, because being behind two eight year old boys meant there was a myriad of smells and noises she didn’t want to think about.

The car windows rolled down as they approached a massive bridge. Annabeth took a moment to appreciate the structure of it before the rest of the car began to yell with glee. Salty air hit her nose, and she looked out the window to look at the seemingly endless marshlands that they were passing over. Something awful hit her nose, too, and her dad kindly pointed out that the smell was pluff mud, a South Carolina specialty. 

South Carolina was his choice. When he was picking out locations for a beach vacation, she begged him for somewhere populated and dense, somewhere she could slip away and feel like she wasn’t experiencing the misery of mandated family bonding. But of course, he had to pick the most remote location he could find— Edisto Beach, South Carolina. 

Annabeth had been horrified when she researched the place. The only signs of civilization were at the beginning of the island, where the gas station and Subway shared a building. The total population was only around 400 people. She didn’t stand a single chance of getting away. She wasn’t even sure if she could get high speed internet in the house he had rented for them. It was absolutely hellish.

They continued to wind through marshlands and passed trees covered in Spanish moss. They drove by old churches with ancient looking cemeteries, and run down houses trimmed with odd blue paint.

“Haint-proofing,” her dad had supplied. “The slave population used to believe that if you painted your doors and windows with indigo dye, then ghosts couldn’t enter your home. They called them haints, which is believed to be derived from ‘haunts’. The indigo dye was usually the dye left over that they had access to, so that was what they used. You’ll see many homes still trimmed out with the indigo color.”

That was more information than Annabeth needed to know, but that tended to be the case with her father. After they passed yet another marsh, beach houses began to appear, and what looked like a small town came into view. 

“Welcome to Edisto,” Fredrick proclaimed.

They turned down what seemed to be one of two roads on the entire island. The house was supposedly within walking distance of the beach, which she supposed was a slight plus. The house had an awful name that her dad insisted had character: “Thistle Dew.” The other upside was that she was granted the entire top floor to herself. There were perks to being insolent about vacations, and getting privacy was one of them. Her father figured that if she was well-accommodated, she might be more amenable to the whole event. She wasn’t, but she did appreciate the sight that awaited her once she climbed the stairs. A king sized bed and an en suite, and far enough away from her brothers that she couldn’t complain too much.

That evening, after an entire debacle about where they would eat, since there was almost no familiarity with the local places on the island, it was decided that they should all walk down to the ocean and see the sunset. Annabeth tried her best to get out the ordeal, but she was dragged down the stairs and into her flip flops by Matthew and Bobby.

“Come on, Annabeth, we have to see the size of the waves! They’re gonna be awesome!”

They walked down cracked pavement and across the over major road in town to get to the beach access. They struggled up the dunes, and Bobby and Matthew went running, diving into the surf almost immediately. Her father and stepmother held hands and gazed at the oranges and pinks streaking the sky as the sun went down.

Annabeth was the only one without a partner. She sat down on a bench and drew her knees up to her chest, resting her chin on them. She stared off into the sunset, too, taking in the breeze tangling her curls and making her lips taste salty, listening to the crashing of the waves and the screams of her brothers.

The ocean was nice, but it always made her feel slightly empty inside. It was something about the vast expanse of water that extended for miles, unending and mysterious. It was more than she could comprehend to imagine the depths it would reach. The emptiness scared her, too. She felt the cold space in her chest that threatened to take over her sometimes, and she had no idea how anyone functioned like this. There was a part of her that feared no one else felt like this. They all had family they loved, and people who cared. But Annabeth felt like she had nothing but herself. There was nothing that tied her to the people around her except for blood. But that didn’t feel like enough some days. 

She felt alone in the world, and it was a scary feeling sometimes. It was possible to ignore, but as she stared out over the water, she had a nagging question floating through her head: how was she supposed to spend a month in this tiny beach town with people to whom she wasn’t attached?


	2. two

It was far too hot for Annabeth’s liking. Actually, the entire island was too much for her liking. It felt like a salty, soupy hellscape. The family time was another matter entirely. She had been dragged from bed at an ungodly hour for breakfast at a place with an orange and green scuba diving cow for a logo, and then told she was going to be getting on a boat for a wildlife tour. 

Wildlife wasn’t the problem. It was being surrounded by Bobby and Matthew as they screamed about a boat ride, then her father and step-mother while they canoodled and marveled over the science. Annabeth, on the other hand, was coated in sunscreen and had jammed her Yankees hat over her head, determined to get this forced family bonding over with as quickly as possible.

She stared out at the marsh from the backseat window, looking at the various houses on stilts whooshing by. The architecture of the beach homes was fascinating to her. An entire structure balanced on a prism of wood, supported by beams, and with porches to boot. She felt her fingers start to twitch in anticipation of getting her sketchpad out. There were so many older structures on the island that could be improved with a few tweaks and design elements, and the idea of sticking to hurricane code requirements was a new challenge for her.

“…isn’t that right, Annie?”

Annabeth was snapped out of her thoughts by the voice of her stepmother. She hated to be called Annie. 

“I wasn’t listening, so I don’t know.”

“Would it kill you to pay attention some, Annabeth,” her father asked. His eyes were on her in the rearview mirror, and his expression was pleading, begging her to make the most of the family outing. She knew he wanted them all to be one big, happy family, but that just wasn’t going to be reality. She was an outsider to this group. A product of a former love of her dad’s, and a reminder to her stepmother that she didn’t have the perfect little family. It was hard to pay attention when being the odd man out was staring you in the face.

The car rolled to a stop in a gravel parking lot. Bobby and Matthew tumbled out and started talking to each other at a million miles an hour. Her father and stepmother both exited and began holding hands immediately. Annabeth stepped out and was hit with a nauseating combination of saltwater, pluff mud, and fish. The South Carolina sun was beating down on her, and she was counting down the minutes until this particular punishment was over. The ocean had never been her happy place, and she was going to be sitting on a boat in the middle of it for the foreseeable afternoon. 

The marina itself was a joke. It looked to be sea-battered and barely held together. Several older men milled around with beards and skin like old leather, chattering about lures and their latest catches. There was a sitting area on the dock that looked out over the marsh, with mismatched chairs and tables that looked like they could have been through a storm or seven. There were at least umbrellas to hide out from the sun, and Annabeth deposited herself in one immediately while her father sorted out the tickets.

“Down this way, Chase family!” 

His enthusiasm was doing absolutely nothing for Annabeth. She was then unceremoniously pulled from her shade by her younger brothers and dragged down the docks toward the water. They stopped in front of a ramp down to a smaller dock, and pointed excitedly at the ricketiest boat she had ever laid eyes on. It was a speckled body with a faded blue canopy over the middle section, and an enormous black dog laid in front of the stern. As soon as they approached, the dog let out a lazy bark, and then proceeded to jump down from its bench.

“That’s a good girl, Mrs. O’Leary. Don’t slobber on our guests, or they won’t come back!”

A dark haired figure was at the back of the boat with a clipboard, taking inventory of life jackets that looked like they had seen better days years ago. He was wearing board shorts and a faded t-shirt, and he was barefoot. A pair of discarded flip flops sat dangerously near the dog apparently named Mrs. O’Leary. The sun didn’t seem to bother him; his skin was a shade of brown that only seemed to appear on natives to the island, a nut brown that screamed of a life spent in the sun on the beach. 

A local. Exactly what Annabeth didn’t want to deal with. The locals she had been forced to interact with so far were hard to understand and didn’t seem to do anything promptly. A three hour wildlife tour of the ACE Basin with one was sure to be a special kind of punishment for her.

“Alright, so if I can get everyone over 18 to sign off on this sheet here that says you won’t sue us, that’ll be great.”

He sounded like syrup. That was the only way to describe his voice. There was a smoothness to the local that had a lilt like she hadn’t heard before. She guessed it was a Low Country accent, but to her Virginia trained ears, it didn’t seem close to the vague accents she’d heard before in the south. It was going to be challenge to decode what he had to say for the time she’d be stuck on this boat.

Before she could gripe any more, the massive black dog bounded into her lap and began to lick off every last vestige of sunscreen she’d applied. She certainly considered herself a dog person most of the time, but she was still alarmed by the weight of the enormous dog that had plopped into her lap and the sheer stench of dog breath assaulting her nose.

“BAD, Mrs. O’Leary, down, girl!! We don’t slobber on the customers!”

The boy from the boat wrenched the dog off of her lap with what she assumed was an apologetic look. His eyes were covered by sunglasses, so she couldn’t be sure. She at least hoped he was sorry for the way his dog was acting. 

“Listen, I’m so sorry about that. I’m Captain Percy, by the way, and I’ll be leading you today with Botany Bay Eco Tours. I’ve got an extra shirt around here if you wanna wipe off your face. Mrs. O’Leary is mostly harmless, but she’s got about 10 pounds of love in a 5 pound sack, and you were the lucky recipient of all of it today.”

The dog was now sitting at her feet and panting happily. Besides her generally large appearance and horrible breath, she seemed like a sweet dog, and Annabeth resigned herself to at least one thing on this boat liking her.

“It’s okay. She can stay here if she likes. I don’t mind dogs.”

“Excellent, because Mrs. O’Leary is usually my first mate. But I’ve got two little dudes here today that might want to take up that title. What do you think, guys? Wanna be my first mates?”

Bobby and Matthew both were delighted by this, and clambered toward Captain Percy with all of the excitement of 8 year old boys. He laughed and chattered with them while her parents wrestled them into life jackets, and Annabeth lazily pet Mrs. O’Leary’s head. The dog was surely to make the trip more bearable.

Once the boys were strapped into their life jackets, they crawled onto the bow of the boat at Captain Percy’s insistence, and he began to untie the ropes anchoring them to the dock, throwing various bobbers into the floor and looping ropes around his biceps. Annabeth’s father and stepmother settled into the bench Mrs. O’Leary had been occupying, and Annabeth herself stayed on the side seating, Mrs. O’Leary hopping up beside her. Then, slowly but surely, the boat took off.

“So, we’re starting our tour in the Edisto River, which runs right into the ocean thereabouts. The river is home to a lot of our native wildlife, and is often a real dolphin pod area. If you look over to your right, you’ll see an egret. Those white beauties are marsh animals, and they’re pretty common here on the island. 

“Now, if we’re going to spending three hours together here on this boat, I figure it’s time I learned your names. I’m Captain Percy Jackson, and Edisto has been my home all my life. I’m a marine biology major at the University of South Carolina during the school year, but I come back home and do these tours during the summer. What’s y’all’s names, and where are you from?”

Bobby and Matthew immediately started to run their mouths off about what seemed to be their entire life story. Annabeth zoned out and took in the salty air around her, letting her head tip back slightly so the sun could warm her up and help relax her body. Mrs. O’Leary seemed to agree with her and dropped her head into Annabeth’s lap. 

“And that’s our daughter, Annabeth. She’ll be going to USC in the fall, too.”

Her name snapped her out of her meditation, and she found Captain Percy staring at her. He looked like he was looking for a response from her, which she didn’t feel particularly inclined to give. But he continued to stare, and so she gave a half-hearted wave.

“Annabeth, huh? It’s always good to know the name of the pretty girl snuggling with my girl. You’ll be at USC, too, huh? What’s your major?”

“Um. Engineering.”

“Awesome! What do you want to do, then?”

“I want to go into city planning.”

“What does that mean? Like you actually get to create towns? Because that sounds pretty cool, I won’t lie.”

“It means I’d help make decisions about streets and projects. A little less permanent.”

“That’s pretty awesome. I’m in marine biology, because I just really like animals and the ocean, and I want to help them out. There are so many cool animals out here, and I think the loggerheads are my favorite, but the dolphins cool, too. And don’t get me started on all of the fish!!”

His enthusiasm was a lot for Annabeth, and she just stared at him. He continued to babble on and on, talking about wildlife, himself, and anything around them that seemed interesting. He whipped the small boat around the marsh, and pointed out birds, fish, and shell mounds. He made them stop and taste the sea grass, which was surprisingly salty from its exposure to the water. But most of all, he kept trying to talk to Annabeth.

There was no dearer wish to her at the moment than having her cell phone, which she left in the car. Then she would at least have a distraction and a visual to say, “I’m busy, fuck off.” But she only had Mrs. O’Leary there to distract her, and she belonged to the annoyance in front of her. A less than perfect solution to her problem. But she supposed that if she was stuck on a boat on an island she didn’t want to be on, a dog in her lap was the least inconvenient thing that could happen to her.


End file.
